


The stress of his regard

by loveinadoorway



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 04:56:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinadoorway/pseuds/loveinadoorway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another Livejournal comment_fic prompt.</p><p>mahmfic:  Sherlock BBC, John/+Sherlock, John buys a cat from the pet store and when he brings it home it turns into Sherlock.</p><p>Just getting warmed up on this one. Might get continued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You know, we don’t often get purebred cats here,” the lady at the pet store had said and smiled. “It was a very special occasion. Of course, he’s already grown up and all… Not neutered, though. I hope you won’t have any issues with that.”

John wondered briefly why the Black Oriental had ended up there. With his kind of luck, the cat would turn out to be psychotic. Or worse.

Get a pet, his therapist had said. Might help with the PTSD. Only, she had wanted him to get a dog, of course. So he would have to go out and about. Problem was, though, that John didn’t actually LIKE dogs. He had always wanted a cat. Never quite got around to getting one.

But maybe this was the moment and this curious black chap was the one. All long limbs and ridiculous cheekbones, very intense verdigris eyes that shone with an almost human expression of keen interest and intelligence.

On the bus, the cat revealed something of a commanding nature. He got very verbal about which seat to be in. He got verbal again when John turned the kennel to face out of the window. Apparently, the cat preferred to look at the people on the bus.

In the dire boarding house, he stepped regally from the kennel and looked haughtily at the drab furniture and the bare walls. After a brief round, the cat sat down in front of John and looked up expectantly.

John almost expected the cat to start talking. He so perfectly conveyed a sense of disgust at John’s living quarters that the doctor had to fight the urge to start apologizing.

“Well, then, how about some food?” he cheerfully asked instead. “Look what I’ve got for you. Chicken liver pate in jelly. Isn’t that yummy?”

The look on the cat’s face clearly said no.

After John had emptied the tiny tin onto a saucer and placed it in front of the cat, the look evolved to a “you have got to be kidding me”. An elegant paw was stretched out, the blob of paté was briefly nudged in disbelief. Then the black cat turned on his heel and jumped on John’s bed.

Facing the wall, he curled up, pointedly ignoring John.

Oh boy.  
John resignedly went to sleep, arranging himself around the curled up cat.

He had heard that pets tended to take up a rough two thirds of their owner’s beds, no matter how big or small, but this was ridiculous. First of all, the cat was a veritable furnace next to him. Secondly, it felt like it stretched along the entire length of John’s body.

He came awake completely. And went utterly still within a heartbeat.

There was a man in his bed.

A very naked, tall man.

John carefully felt for the gun in the nightstand drawer. It took him quite a while to ease the drawer open and get the gun out without any noise. He turned slightly, getting ready to attempt a jump out of his bed, when a deep, resonant voice suddenly said:

“Kindly put that gun away, Dr. Watson. I can explain.”

“Okay, explain, then. But I won’t put the gun away until I decide whether or not I like your explanation,” John growled.

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. I… I am sure you will have a hard time believing, but I am the cat you bought today.”

“Yes, right, buddy. Don’t move, or I’ll put a hole in your shoulder,” John ground out as he got up from the bed, his game leg even worse than it had been before.  
Of all the bloody madmen in the world, why this one and why the hell in his room? IN HIS BED, for crying out loud. Naked. In his bed.

John was standing in front of the bed, gun in hand. He prided himself on how steady his aim was. Verdigris eyes were looking at him curiously, but completely unafraid. Mad as a hatter, that one.

Now what?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm not really someone who enjoys writing very long stories. I like short bits... but I'm going to keep going, bit by bitty bit.
> 
> I will be attending Elementary con this weekend (7th to 9th of Feb 2014) and am not entirely sure if the panic about standing next to Benedict Cumberbatch in a photo op will be good for my writing. So... patience might be needed!

“Oh, very well, then,” the basket case on John’s bed said and had the cheek to sound completely exasperated. As if John was the one with faulty bits on the inside of his skull, not him.

And then it happened.

Purple smoke rose from the naked nutter, swirled and eddied upwards, then danced for a few heartbeats, before it got sucked back in and then there was that cat again. On the bed. Where the naked nutter had sat.

John opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out. He pointed towards the cat on the bed, shook his head, looked at his gun, shook his head again and tried again to talk. In vain.

The cat jumped from the bed and up on the rickety old armchair. Black smoke did the same dance the purple had done before and the naked nutter was back. Curled up in the armchair. Still naked as a newborn baby.

Those riveting eyes trained on John, he rested his chin on his arm and said: “It’s not a trick, you know. It’s what I am.”

To the stranger, that apparently was enough of an explanation. To John, it very much wasn’t. But before he could say anything, he was cut short by an impatient move of a long-fingered hand.

“Not now. I am in need of some clothes and then we will have to go to my place.”

They got off the taxi in front of 221b Baker Street. Sherlock had argued the entire way. Apparently, the man wasn’t overly familiar with the term “make do”, nor was he accepting any compromises.

“I look ridiculous. I can’t understand why I had to wear some of your pants. Couldn’t you just buy me some pants that aren’t a foot too short for me?”

“Because I live on an army pension. And it’s not a foot, not by a long stretch, quit whining. We’re there already, anyway and nobody really noticed.”

John actually wished he had told Sherlock to shift back to cat for a minute, before he remembered that the cat had been exactly like that as well. Same charming personality.

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. All he had wanted had been a furry companion. Someone who would be waiting for him when he got home. Someone he could talk to, even if there wouldn’t be any actual answer. Someone who might eventually comfort him when he was low.

Now he was in the company of this… creature, who apparently didn’t know the first thing about manners, about how people treated each other. And his cheekbones in man-form were still ridiculous.

“Oh my goodness, Sherlock, there you are! You had me so worried! Running around at all hours, not coming home for two entire days!”

Well, at least this lady seemed concerned about the man. He smiled at her, while Sherlock sailed past her and up the stairs without as much as a glance in her direction.

“Oh, and you brought along a little friend. How nice. Are you dating?”

John sputtered a little and realized suddenly that he had no clue what to say to her. He couldn’t very well tell her he had actually BOUGHT Sherlock in a pet store the previous day, could he? That is, he just didn’t assume Holmes would tell everybody about his… secret.

“Mrs. Hudson, this is Dr. John Watson. He will be moving in here. Tea would be splendid, since you’re up already.”

John followed Sherlock upstairs after an apologetic shrug towards Mrs. Hudson. The apartment was a mess. Stacks of books, piles of paper, scientific equipment, assorted odds and sods. Sherlock flopped down in a black leather chair, pointing at the armchair opposite. John took that to mean he was supposed to sit down.

Silence.

After a few minutes, during which John had marveled at the collection of random objects that surrounded them, Sherlock suddenly started speaking.

“I work as a consulting detective. I solve crimes for the police. I’m in the middle of an investigation. The cat can go where human me can’t, but then I was caught in a live trap and put up for sale at the pet store. Because I am, of course, neither chipped not tattooed and hence not officially belonging to anyone.”

“Well, you should consider yourself lucky, then, you weren’t brought to a pound, because their first order of business would’ve been to neuter you,” John replied drily.

If looks could kill….


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, took me quite a while to recover from meeting a certain Mr. Cumberbatch...
> 
> Here's the next installment. Settling in.

He lay curled up in the armchair, pondering the situation. He growled a little, then shifted his position. No, this wouldn’t do at all for thinking. Maybe if he put his legs … no… He turned completely. Nope, not like that either. What if his back were towards the side like so? Hell, no, that didn’t do at all.

“It’s weird, how like a cat you are, when you’re not even IN your cat shape,” John said with a smile that quickly died in the face of a withering look.

“I don’t know what you mean. I am trying to make sense of what I learned before I was caught,” Sherlock ground out. “And I just can’t THINK when I’m uncomfortable.”

John had to fight the urge to argue his point, but if he knew anything about cats, it was that it was futile to argue with them. And they would do whatever they damn well pleased, anyway, regardless of what you thought of it.

Actually, maybe he should reconsider his choice for a pet. Maybe he should get a dog instead, after all. Maybe he could get used to their ways once he owned one.

“I can’t make head or tail of this. The owner of a pawnshop was garroted three nights ago. I deducted that the likeliest scenario involved a petty thief named Ron Miller, but when I searched his flat, there was absolutely no evidence to be found.”

Sherlock looked at his hands and scowled.

“Just as I was climbing down the fire escape, I was caught in this blasted trap and this entire outing turned from useless to nightmare in five seconds flat.”

“How on earth does one get CAUGHT in a live trap? Usually, you have to walk in there and trigger the catch for the door. Which is usually done by way of some bait or other.”

“Tuna.”

“Tuna?”

“Yeeees. I happen to like tuna. It kind of comes with the territory, you know?”

John suppressed a smirk. Mr. High-and-mighty had a soft spot for tuna when in cat form. Now that was almost cute. He should file that for future reference.

“So, what’s the second likeliest scenario,” John asked. “You know, if the likeliest one comes up empty, you try the next one… no?”

Sherlock turned in the armchair again, this time to stare at John for the longest time. Good thing the army had taught him not to fidget under scrutiny.

“I am definitely keeping you,” the blasted man announced suddenly. “Yes, you will do quite nicely. I’m pretty sure you will find the second bedroom upstairs much more comfortable than your current lodgings and you could pose as my owner, should I ever get caught like this again. Yes, that would be very convenient.”

Now wait a MINUTE!

“Let me get this straight. YOU. Are keeping. ME.”  
John took a deep breath.  
“I don’t bloody think so. I’m not some trinket you found or a stray pet you take in. Actually, you know, come to think of it, you got it all backwards. If anything, I am keeping YOU.”

With that, John turned on his heel and strode out.  
He was half packed already before he realised what he was doing. He shook his head in disbelief, then snorted a laugh. Very well then. He had acquired a cat, a flatmate and a new flat, apparently. Just a teensy bit more than he had bargained for, but one must make do with what fate dealt one.

When he got back to 221b Baker Street, Sherlock was gone.  
Mrs. Hudson brought him tea and some biscuits and from her chatter, he learned quite a few things about his new flatmate. Sherlock apparently had a brother named Mycroft. Sherlock and Mycroft – made you wonder what kind of demented weirdoes their parents were.

Sherlock apparently was very successful in solving crimes, if not exactly popular with the people he worked with. And he did not solve just any old crimes, it was the puzzling ones he went for. Murders, mostly. Dangerous stuff.

John took another sip of tea. It was only when he put the cup back on the saucer that he realised that the tremor in his hand had completely vanished.

Interesting.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock gets more cat-like by the minute, is a devious cunt and enjoys a bit of ... morning sports.

He had gotten used to waking up with a naked man in his bed.  
At some point during the night, Sherlock-the-cat would come home from God knows where and look for warmth, comfort, or whatever it might be that drew him to John's bed. He’d tread and turn and tread some more and turn again until he reached that one elusive position that a cat can sleep in. And then he would shift back in his sleep and John would wake up with way too much warm alabaster skin pressed against him.

He'd come to classify the morning as a good one, if his morning wood was firmly pointing away from the other body in his bed. This was not such a morning, so John spent an agonising five minutes carefully wiggling away from the sleeping Sherlock, pausing as soon as the other man made a noise or started to move. Fortunately, Sherlock-the-man appeared to be a very sound sleeper, while the cat very much wasn’t.

John finally slid out of bed suppressing a groan and crept into the bathroom. His biggest mistake was to turn at the door and look back at the sprawling body on the bed.  
Sherlock was gorgeous in his sleep, his face peaceful, a slightly wicked smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, his body tangled up in the sheets like a half unwrapped present. John would have loved to take a photo, but he was much too afraid that the beep and click of the camera would wake the man up and John would have to explain what the hell he was doing.

John stepped into the shower. As he shampooed his hair, he wished that he could rinse the image of sleeping Sherlock from his brain at the same time. He had spent years convincing himself that he could be just as happy with a woman as with a man, but it was not like his interests were evenly split. Men had always meant more to him. There was a need that women, no matter how lovely and loving, could never fulfill.  
Yet there was also a nagging sense of "not quite right" in all his tries with men, too.

After the last in a long line of disastrous relationships with both women and men, he had basically not only stopped trying to fulfill his parents' expectations of a proper partner, he had in fact given up completely. No relationships. No lovers. Not even in Afghanistan, not even when everybody had basically shagged everyone else, just because they could all be dead the next morning.  
John had been alone.  
If he couldn't have a love that felt right, why bother? He was better off alone. 

Only... Only now there was Sherlock. Gorgeous, complex, complicated, aggravating Sherlock with his huge secret, his amazing abilities and his many shortcomings. John felt himself drawn, not only physically, but also emotionally to his strange new companion and there was this tiny little speck of hope again. Hope that there might be someone for him, after all.  
But if he had learned one thing, it was that hope was a treacherous beast.

His train of thought led back to the man in his bed. So alluring, so sexy, the way he had looked just then.  
He was achingly hard, but he didn't dare to do anything about it, for fear Sherlock might hear him.

Sherlock congratulated himself on his restraint. He had almost given the game away this time, but oh, those long minutes of helpless wiggling had been SO very nice. He had deducted after the second night that John thought that the cat came to his bed for some indistinct cattish reason and that he changed back involuntarily in his sleep. Sherlock was content to keep it that way, at least until he could be certain that John could in fact truly accept ALL that Sherlock was.

He stretched lazily and yawned, the morning sun tickling his nose. Mmmh. It was rather wonderful to wake up with John's smaller frame pressed against his larger one. Feeling John's erection against his flesh. Savouring the warmth and the comfort and the closeness. But then John always left, always so intent to not wake Sherlock, to not let him feel that John might be in need of some... attention.  
No, there was no way he could be sure yet that John could be, would be the one. 

He had thought he was destined to be alone. He had thought he was happy alone. Neither of those two statements was factually correct. He had taken his emotions and shoved them so ruthlessly in a dark recess of his mind palace so long ago that it had taken him completely by surprise to find he still possessed them. Enjoyed them, even. Now there was this short, unassuming man with those ridiculous facial expressions, who had turned his life around completely in the span of barely three weeks.

They worked well together, John providing the necessary human and humane insights when needed. Okay, also when not needed, Sherlock thought wryly. John never ceased to present his opinion, not even in the face of Sherlock's most arrogant twat face. Few people had ever had the courage to completely disregard Sherlock's moods and convictions. It took a brave man to face the wrath of Holmes. John never flinched, no matter how acerbic Sherlock's comments got.

Sherlock curled up and smiled at the thought of that obstinate head tilt the man always did. He purred softly, as he stroked himself, turning and flexing his muscular frame. Such a nice, strong body, such a nice, strong cock. Sherlock was desperate to touch it. He increased the pressure on his own cock, as he fantasised about the way the hot water would run down John's body in the shower right now. Tiny rivulets playing around the man's nipples. A small waterfall cascading over his abdomen and down his cock.

He barely managed to grab John's discarded underpants and press them on his own throbbing cock before he came.  
Wouldn't do at all to leave a trace of his morning ritual, would it now?  
Sherlock stretched once more, turned his face into the morning sun once more, smiled at the sensation, then got up and briskly exited the room, humming a bit of Mozart under his breath.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of smut. Just a tiny little bit.  
> And we have the drugs.... just thought I should mention that.
> 
> And I am once more ever so sorry for taking so long!

John moaned, bucking and heaving as Sherlock’s wickedly skillful fingers brushed against his prostate and those sinful lips whispered astonishingly dirty things in John’s ear.  
John ran his hands greedily over the white, wide expanse of Sherlock’s chest, pinching the other man’s nipples hard. He was rewarded by a groan of pleasure.

Sherlock’s ministrations picked up speed and John reveled in the sensations. He could feel his orgasm build, as he was whispering encouragement at his lover, while he sucked Sherlock’s long neck until a gorgeous, purple hickey formed.  
When Sherlock’s other hand closed firmly around John’s cock, the doctor came, gasping Sherlock’s name.

With that orgasm, John woke up. He lay panting for a long time, until sanity returned and he sat up in his bed, half expecting to find Sherlock sleeping next to him. Or worse, Sherlock wide awake next to him, looking at John with curious eyes, much the same as if the older man were one of Sherlock’s experiments.

Thankfully, John was alone. Well, at least until the black cat jumped in through the window, stopped in his tracks and looked haughtily at the disheveled human on the bed. Sherlock-the-cat blinked slowly, then turned and, with a flick of his tail, strode from the room.

John collapsed, hoping against hope that the cat might have missed the rather obvious smell on him. And the look on his face, likewise probably incredibly obvious.

Sherlock reluctantly shifted back to human form. While his senses were still slightly heightened compared to normal humans, they were nowhere near as keen in human form as in cat form and he rather enjoyed the scent of John’s come wafting downstairs. 

But in cat form, he of course couldn’t masturbate and watching John in the throes of a wet dream had almost done him in. 

Of course, it had been him who started that. Sherlock grinned wickedly at the memory. He had come in, wet and cold and just wanted nothing more than to curl up in John’s warmth until he was all better. John had looked so delectable in his sleep, however, that Sherlock had tentatively started to tread a little on a more, shall we say, sensitive part of the man’s anatomy. It hadn’t taken much to make John start to beautifully go off the deep end, with soft moans and needy sounds, as the dream picked up speed.

When it looked like John was nearing completion, Sherlock had had enough presence of mind left to retreat to perch on the window sill, but when John came with Sherlock’s name on his lips, heightened cat senses or not, he had fallen very inelegantly off the ledge. The lime tree in the back garden had thankfully broken his fall.

He had rushed back upstairs through the tree, leaping through the window and had been rewarded by the most comical look on John’s face. Sex and another entry for his ever-growing funny John faces collection… Yes, all in all, that had been quite a good way to begin the day.  
He stepped into his shower with a smile on his face and his left hand on his achingly hard cock.

Another day, another crime scene.  
John was still surprised at how quickly he had adapted to his new circumstances. When they arrived at crime scenes together, naturally John would go find Anderson and try to get as much actual intel out of the constantly complaining man as he possibly could, while Sherlock would go over the crime scene, review the pieces of evidence and take a closer look at the corpse. 

It was weird, but John was actually having a fun day on the job with Sherlock. The man was reigning in his acerbic tongue for once and so even the police were cooperative for a change. The DI even said thanks when Sherlock pointed out a piece of evidence Lestrade had overlooked.  
When Holmes actually smiled at Donovan in passing, John actually started to worry.

Upon their arrival at 221b Baker Street, however, Sherlock’s good mood evaporated within a split second.  
He stared at the knocker, which hung straight for a change, then said “MYCROFT!” with so much venom that John checked if his gun was still where it was supposed to be, in case Mycroft, even if he was Sherlock's brother, had to be stopped.

Sherlock bounded upstairs, taking two steps at a time.  
In the living room, a dapper gentleman stood, poised and slightly menacing in his demeanour.

“What the hell do you want,” Sherlock snapped.  
“Oh, brother mine, I was just in the neighbourhood and thought it opportune to check in on you. I see you acquired a little friend…”

A pale, elegant hand was extended. 

“Mycroft Holmes. You must be Dr. Watson. Pleasure.”

Pleasure? Either Sherlock’s brother had a different definition of pleasure, or a set of facial expressions uniquely his own.

“Likewise, I’m sure,” John said, fake smile firmly plastered on his features.

Mycroft Holmes turned away from John, as if he had immediately lost all interest – if ever he’d had any to begin with.

“You have missed your appointment, brother mine.”

“As far as I was concerned, I had no appointment. I never agreed to your stupid rules,” Sherlock ground out.

“Then you will suffer the consequences. No drug testing, no trust fund money. I believe I explained this to you at great length, so even someone of your limited capacities should have understood.”

With that, Mycroft took his hat and umbrella and left, with the most perfunctory nod in John’s direction.

“Sherlock… what… what was he talking about? Why are you required to get drug tested?”

John was confused. Of all people… No. Couldn’t be.

Sherlock was very pale, but his face gave nothing away. His voice was icy, devoid of emotion, when he said calmly, “I have a penchant for… shall we call them fast drugs? With a bit of heroin tossed in every now and again when I need to be… calm. None of your business and nothing you need concern yourself with.”

Sherlock turned towards the window, picked up his violin and said, still in the same awful, cold, detached voice, “It’s rather unfortunate about the trust fund money, though. We shall have to find an alternative revenue scheme.”

John was shocked beyond words. He silently walked upstairs to his room, followed by angry snippets of Vivaldi.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about this. Sheer, raw hurt, no comfort.  
> But I will try to make this okay eventually.

Each note got progressively more aggressive, more edgy as he worked his way through the Four Seasons.

He was butchering Vivaldi in a great big bloodbath of sharp, nasty notes. His fingers were working at the same speed as his mind, ghosting over the curved neck of his violin with a certainty he did not feel, while horsehair by horsehair was severed on his bow, in a way that would have driven his violin teacher to distraction.

Fuck Mycroft.  
Mycroft and his bloody awful meddling in Sherlock’s affairs. Mycroft and his ham-fisted attempts at saving Sherlock, even when… ESPECIALLY when Sherlock didn’t need saving.

John had been supposed to … laugh it off. Say something scathing about Mycroft. Be supportive. Just the fuck understand.  
At least ask.  
Instead, the other man had just silently walked out of the room, while Sherlock was still waiting for the words that never came.

HE HADN’T EVEN ASKED IF SHERLOCK WAS USING.

John had just left Sherlock standing there.  
Discarded without a second thought. Just as always, whenever he had tried to … connect. From his parents’ garden to the schoolyard, from the university hallways to the bars and clubs of London’s seedy underbelly, it had always been the same.

Every now and again, there would be someone who gave Sherlock hope. The hope of not having to spend his life all alone after all. Maybe. The hope of making a true connection. The hope of finding his life mate, like his parents had. There had to be someone out there for Sherlock and despite his better judgment, he kept on trying. Fewer and fewer times, as he grew older, but try he must.

He knew better. He had always known better. Emotions were toxic. Emotions turned him into this needy thing. He steered clear of them, he shoved them into the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind. All they had ever done was hurt him. Sometimes, they left him bruised and bleeding, sometimes, their aftermath had to be eased over using copious amounts of a variety of chemicals. And sometimes, they left his soul shattered.

His bow slipped.  
Vivaldi was all wrong. All wrong. Not what he wanted now, not what he needed.  
All he needed was…

He stopped playing and gently put his violin down.  
It came down to this. He either needed a fix now, or John.  
Neither of those options appeared to be a healthy choice at the end of the day.

He was destructive, he was poison. Nobody could stand being around him for any length of time.  
As a matter of fact, his stint with John actually was the longest time he had ever cohabitated with anyone – which probably was due to the fact that Sherlock had kept it in his pants, as it were.

His mind was a seething mass of crawling insects. Chaos. No control.

It wasn’t about the drugs at all. That was the worst bit of it. Sherlock might be able to explain. But if John reacted like that to something so irrelevant, something that actually wasn’t even scraping the surface of what it meant to be Sherlock… if John couldn’t even handle THAT, how could he be with Sherlock?

The tiny little ray of hope that he had nourished, the idea, the illusion of forming a lifelong connection with this most unlikely of companions died an ugly death. Nothing had ever quite hurt like that before. But then again, he had never quite felt like that before, either.

He knew he was unraveling fast and there was nothing he could do about it.

He grabbed the tea set and threw it on the floor. Tore the bloody stag head from the wall, smashed it into a thousand pieces. The assorted bric-a-brac of 221b Baker Street died an ugly, loud, razor sharp death until two strong arms grabbed him from behind and a shocked voice talked him down until sanity returned and Sherlock started to sob.

“You fucking asshole,” he ground out between two choking breaths, “I’m not even using. Not that you bloody well thought to ASK ME.”

Soothing noises.

“You were supposed to be DIFFERENT.”

God, it hurt. Everything hurt. Everything felt wrong and alien.

“You were supposed to be my FRIEND.”

That last word had felt like it was made of razorblades. It forced its way up from somewhere deep down in Sherlock’s throat and cut his insides to ribbons as it went.

The words had spilled out, quite against his will. And now they filled the silence in the room and he could not take them back.

And even worse were the words that remained buried deep within his soul.  
 _You were supposed to love me._  
The desperate plea for love had thankfully stayed down and just continued to tear his guts to shreds.

He stilled completely, just tried to force some air into his lungs. Even breathing felt all wrong.

John remained silent, only his thumbs were rubbing circles on Sherlock’s shoulders. The tenderness of that gesture was unbearable.  
Pity, was it?  
He didn’t need any fucking pity. He bloody well did not need John Watson to pity him. He wasn’t a charity case, not just YET.

After what seemed like an eternity, Sherlock lurched to his feet and half ran into his bedroom.  
John heard the key turn in the lock.  
He stayed where he was, on the floor in the living room, too shocked to move, too shaken to know what to do next.

All he knew was that he had somehow failed Sherlock.

And all he knew was that he loved that strange creature to distraction. He knew that with absolute certainty, while at the same time he had no clue how to handle that.

Captain John Hamish Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers loved Sherlock Holmes and he just didn't know what to do about it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long again - but on a more positive note, I already started with the next chapter!

Inacceptable.  
What he felt for John was quite simply inacceptable. It distracted him from his work and if there was anything he would not, could not tolerate, it was things that came between him and his work. He stared at the corpse on the damp ground and didn’t see a damn thing.

“Jones, you idiot, your men have completely ruined the crime scene. Footprints all over my evidence. How you ever made DI baffles me. Can’t have been on merit and you’re too unattractive for it to have anything to do with fornication. So. Must have been blackmail.”

“There’s a foot long Latin name for what you got, freak!”

John winced. No, this case was not going well. And it didn’t help that Lestrade was tied up with another case and they were working with DI Jones (“Mind as ordinary as his name,” Holmes had hissed and not even bothered to keep his voice down.), who had taken to Sherlock like a fish to… the desert.

And speaking of the aggravating Consulting Prat…. Well, even for Sherlock, the level of acidity in his comments was off the charts today. And that was without provocation – DI Jones, however, apparently constituted a walking provocation and things were escalating at alarming speed. John was almost glad when Sherlock turned on his heels and strode off without a reply.

As John was running after Sherlock, trying in vain to look like he was striding, too and hating the fact his legs were so much shorter than Holmes’, he couldn’t help but wonder what on earth was going on.   
Sherlock seemed to have recovered from the outbreak after Mycroft’s visit. He had come from his room for breakfast the next morning and had acted as if nothing ever happened. In the few days since, there had been no undue incidents, Mycroft hadn’t been around again, the latest batch of gruesome experiments had gone well and John simply couldn’t see where the hell that mood had come from.

He sighed and pretended not to hear when Sherlock snapped at him to bloody well keep up and why did John have to have three biscuits with his tea when clearly he was horrifyingly out of shape already. And he pretended to himself that he was accelerating out of his own free will. And that he was not having problems breathing evenly.

Sherlock was of a mind to just tell the cab driver to go and leave John huffing and puffing at the curb. Would serve the man right. He was annoying. Who wore mustard coloured jumpers with… God, were those puppies? Yes. With bloody PUPPIES on them, of all things. Who did that?

John Watson. Doctor John H. Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Whose face and form Sherlock could describe in minute detail. Whom he had run into the previous morning as John came out of the bathroom after a shower. Who had been damp, whose hair had been sticking all over the place and who had been barely wrapped up in a towel. Who had smelled of chamomile soap.  
Who had been stuck in his brain like that ever since. 

Stuck. As in no matter where in his mind palace Sherlock went, semi-naked Watson was already there. He hadn’t been able to do a thing at the crime scene – thank God that Jones fellow was too stupid to notice. Sherlock had brazened it out by routine and sheer force of his over 30 years of experience in being a total tit. Nobody asked him any real questions, if he was just behaving badly enough.

He sat in the cab, staring out of the window, away from John. He needn’t have bothered, the faintest whiff of chamomile wafting over to him was enough to wreck his equilibrium completely.  
He tried retreating further into his mind palace to escape. As he wandered through rooms he hadn’t been by in a long time, he suddenly came face to face with the door.

THE DOOR. Firmly locked for the last fifteen years or so. He had locked it and thrown away the key, but now he wasn’t so certain anymore that it had been a good idea to do so.  
The door was rattling, as if something was trying to get out and Sherlock was of a mind to just let it. He would, but… there was that small matter of the key. 

It shouldn’t be a problem, really, should it now? It was, after all, a virtual door to a virtual room with a virtual key. He had imagined it all, hadn’t he? So he should, to all intents and purposes, be able to easily make up a spare key, shouldn’t he?  
Well, there’s the thing. He just couldn’t. His aggravating mind had sealed this door shut and much as he had tried lately, he had no clue how to open it.

“Sherlock? We’ve arrived. Coming?”

He started, pulled out of his mind palace much too abruptly by John’s voice. Ah, Baker Street. Home sweet… whatever.   
Sherlock jumped from the cab, dashed past John and made his way up to the flat, only to flop down on the sofa immediately, resuming his aimless internal wanderings.

This was ridiculous. John was used to Sherlock’s moods, he really was by now. But this? This was just beyond the pale. Even for Sherlock.  
He had asked Holmes what he wanted for dinner. No reaction.  
He had said good night and left for bed later. No reaction.  
He had said good morning. No reaction.  
He had put a cuppa in front of the man. It was still untouched when John returned from work that evening.

“Sherlock, I’m putting my foot down right now. Do you hear me? HOLMES!”

John grabbed Sherlock’s elbow and shook the man. Finally, a reaction. Holmes looked startled, almost vulnerable for a second, then his face returned to its currently normal expression of haughty distaste.

“What now? I was thinking!”

“Well, you’ve been… thinking for well over a day now and as far as I can tell, you haven’t eaten, haven’t even in fact had anything to drink during that entire time and I am, as I said before, putting my foot down right now. You will shower, you will change and then you will have dinner with me.”

“Are you asking me to take care of my needs or are you asking me out on a date?” Sherlock said sneeringly.

John opened and closed his mouth a few times. His first impulse had been to confirm the latter, but then the risk had suddenly seemed too high.

“Never you mind, it was a rhetorical question,” Sherlock said in a strange tone of voice and strode into his room, purple smoke already billowing behind him.   
In cat form, Holmes jumped on his bed and curled up there, cold verdigris eyes staring at John until the doctor sighed and turned to walk up to his own room.


	8. Chapter 8

The following morning, Sherlock the cat was still in the same position. John sighed and grabbed Holmes’ discarded clothes from the floor. The suit was rumpled quite badly, so John tried to straighten it out and put it on a hanger, instead of just dumping the entire pile on the bed, as he had originally intended.  
The cat just stared at him.

What was he to do?

As he rummaged through the kitchen cabinet in search of some more tea bags, however, he suddenly smiled widely. A lone tin of tuna was sitting at the back of the shelf, hidden behind some chemistry equipment that looked none too sanitary.

Watson grabbed the tin opener and a saucer. As he carried his prize into the living room, he briefly wondered if he should have tried to find a sprig of parsley or something, like in those cat food ads on tv. He had barely set the saucer down, when a dark shadow dashed between his feet and only a few moments later, the saucer was empty. John grinned.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I’ll stock up on the stuff. Good to know you don’t just LIKE it. You really can’t resist it, can you now?” he said cheerfully to the cat, which was doing its best to look as if it didn’t have a clue where the tuna had gone.

He walked back into the kitchen and started to make tea. He poured two mugs, just in case Holmes decided to shift back to human form.

“That tuna was horrible. Buy the other brand. The one that’s dolphin friendly,” a voice suddenly said.

John jumped, then swore as hot tea sloshed over his hand. Great. Holmes was talking again – but why did he have to do it in such a way that it might give John a heart attack?

“Could you be any more insufferable if you consciously tried?” he hissed, mopping up the tea he had spilled. He turned towards Holmes. “And clothes, would clothes be too much to ask for?”

Sherlock shrugged, took one of the mugs – the one with more tea left in it, of course – then walked back into the living room, grabbing his robe on the way.  
For the briefest moment, he contemplated not putting it on, just to see what John would do then. But all this bitching and nagging in the morning was just… too tedious already.

John had settled down with the morning paper, but he was having a hard time concentrating. Sherlock had taken up his customary position on the sofa again, but the robe was not doing a good job in keeping the man’s thigh covered. And since when was a male thigh so alluring?

He licked his lips. Jesus… Did that blasted man HAVE to keep shifting in his seat? The gap in the robe grew wider and wider and John’s trousers got tighter and tighter, as he tried not to look.

Sherlock was watching the entire display in the mirror opposite, a small smile ghosting over the corners of his lips. He shifted his hips again, ever so slightly and watched John’s reflection swallow convulsively.  
Interesting.  
Decidedly interesting.


End file.
